Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord
by bissek
Summary: When Gonzales and Real S.H.I.E.L.D. learned that Coulson had formed a unit to deal with super-powered and supernatural beings without Indexing anyone, they knew they needed to act. Too bad they failed to understand that S.H.I.E.L.D. has never been the top fish in the pond in the magical world, and that breaking the rules has consequences. Cowritten with Afalstein.
1. Chapter 1

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

By Bissek

Prologue

Agent Gonzales, Commander of the SHIELD carrier _Iliad_ and head of the SHIELD Council, waited in the conference room with Agents Oliver and Weaver, the other members of the council that were present on the ship. An agent he had sent on a long-term assignment had broken away from the group she was observing and had returned to check in. He was interested in seeing what would she had to report.

"Welcome back, Bobbi." He greeted her as his comrade in arms entered.

"It's good to be back, sir." She responded.

"Where is Mack?" Oliver inquired.

"He came into contact with something in the alien city that temporarily controlled his mind. Once he regained self-control, he was placed into quarantine until it can be determined whether or not whatever hit him is completely gone from his system. Hopefully he'll be out in a day or two."

"I hope so, too. Is there anything else to report about that mission?"

"The ostensible objective of the mission was accomplished. Virtually every HYDRA member operating in the vicinity of the alien city was captured or killed. Doctor Whitehall was confirmed as one of the casualties. I wouldn't be surprised if Coulson isn't already working out a plan to further disrupt their operations before HYDRA can appoint a successor to take over his branch of their operations.

"On the matter of the alien city, it was secured and is being rigged for demolition. It should be destroyed within the next few days. What I'm worried about is the fact that Coulson's hidden secondary objective was also achieved."

"And what do you think that objective was, Agent Morse?" Agent Weaver asked.

"Coulson was unable to prevent the Obelisk from being taken into the city and being activated. And Agent Skye was in the activation chamber when it went off. While the Obelisk didn't appear to do anything to her, I wouldn't be surprised if the effects simply aren't immediately obvious. She's also in quarantine at the moment, and I am looking forward to the results of her tests with great interest."

"Be sure to keep me informed if anything unusual is detected from those tests." Gonzales ordered, then changed the subject. "What happened to the Obelisk?"

"During the activation it apparently opened up. Coulson had Skye put the crystals that were inside into a secure lockbox and ordered that it be taken to someone he called the Warden for safekeeping. I don't know who the Warden is, but I suspect that he's someone that Coulson encountered during his recruitment drive last year."

"Ah, yes. The recruitment drive," Oliver said. "Have you been able to dig up anything on that?"

"I still haven't gotten the chance to get to know most of the people Coulson brought in with that - apart from House and Gideon, they're all assigned to posts other than the Playground. Coulson called in some of them for extra firepower before he took down the HYDRA operation in Puerto Rico, and they did a good job of it, too. Given how many people Whitehall had there, it could have gotten ugly if we'd gone in with fewer people. With one exception, they all went back to their normal duty stations the day after the operation was over."

"Who was the exception?" Gonzales inquired.

"That would be an Irishwoman named Glennane. Demolitions expert. She's currently overseeing the effort to destroy the alien facility. I think she's looking forward to the opportunity to blow up an entire city."

"Glennane? Would that be _Fiona_ Glennane? I thought she was dead." Weaver said.

"No, she and her husband faked their deaths quite convincingly until Coulson somehow found them and hired them to run SHIELD operations in Europe for him. And they aren't the only people Coulson hired."

Bobbi produced a flash drive and plugged it into the conference room computer. Two clusters of images appeared on a monitor.

"The people that Coulson went after during the recruitment drive can be divided into two groups. The first group is actually a misnomer, as he didn't actually recruit any of them." One of the clusters was enlarged as Bobbi highlighted it. "These people are all current or former influential members of various intelligence agencies around the world, plus one underworld kingpin. From what I can tell, Coulson was trying to improve relations with their organizations, ostensibly to try correcting some of Fury's mistakes." The other people nodded, and Bobbi moved on to the second cluster.

"The second group are the people who I think of as the official purpose of the recruitment drive. Every single one of these people are highly talented experts in their chosen fields. Most of them are former intelligence, along with a pair of medical experts, two assassins, and a retired homicide detective, along with a few oddballs. I know of most of the people in this group by reputation, which tends to be formidable at the least. Those of the group with a reputation as being good in a fight definitely lived up to it in Puerto Rico."

"I recognize some of the names on that list," Oliver commented. "First-rate people. Do you have any idea where they would fall if we have to remove Coulson from command?"

"I have no idea," Bobbi answered, "I barely exchanged a few words with any of them before they had to leave. We should definitely send someone to sound out their ultimate loyalties, but it can't be me. There's far too great a risk that my cover would get blown if I start going out of my way to introduce myself to cells I'm not connected to, especially if Coulson decides that I'm needed for operations closer to home."

"What are the oddballs you mentioned?" Gonzales asked.

"One of them is a mystery novelist with connections to the homicide detective - he must have been brought in as a package deal. But the bulk of them are in one group that really worries me - a cell that is currently designated 'Special Investigations', though there's apparently an initiative to change the name to something more impressive - the suggested alternatives are the Wizardry, Alchemy and Necromancy Department, the Strategic Thaumaturgic Assault and Fortification Force, and a rather painfully convoluted name that someone must have spent days working on to get it to spell PENTAGRAM. It's headed by a dishonorably discharged member of the Chicago PD with a history of working with a consultant who used to openly advertise himself as a wizard in the phone book."

"Magic?" Weaver raised an eyebrow.

"Apparently. Special Investigations' bailiwick is to identify and deal with paranormal and occult threats. If the files are accurate, the list of people on their payroll or close associates include multiple werewolves, a Valkyrie, several undead Asgardian warriors, a paladin with a lightsaber, and the aforementioned wizard. The files also claim that there is an entire globe-spanning society of various non-human paranormal races that SHIELD had somehow missed for decades, with their own version of the Geneva Convention, which they call the Unseelie Accords. It was last revised in the early nineties, after an incident where somebody in that community caused Milwaukee to disappear for two hours."

"This is ridiculous!" Oliver exclaimed.

"Don't be so sure," Weaver objected. "Milwaukee _did_ disappear for two hours back in the nineties. I was part of the team to investigate that. We never did figure out what happened."

"In any case, I highly doubt that Coulson would be hiring people who claimed to have supernatural abilities unless they could prove that they had them to his satisfaction - or at least something that could be interpreted as supernatural abilities." Gonzales added.

"Which means that regardless of their alleged origin, Coulson is collected gifted people, who have contacts that will allow him to easily find more, none of whom he has officially Indexed," Bobbi concluded. "This makes one specific recruit from the drive even more worrying."

A dark-haired woman appeared on the monitor.

"According to the files, this woman's name is Samantha Groves. The files also state that she is known in the hacker community as Root, in the psychiatric community as Dr Caroline Turing, in the law enforcement community as Agent Augusta King of the FBI, and the criminal community as 'The Gardener.' And that's far from a complete list. The woman's a chameleon - she assumes a role, plays it perfectly until she gets what she wants, and then moves on. She's definitely a player, and I have no idea for who. She was the absolute first person brought in during the recruitment drive, and given a few details that _aren't_ in her file, it's entirely possible that the drive wasn't started by her being recruited into SHIELD, it was started by her recruiting SHIELD."

A second, identical woman appeared on the monitor next to the first.

"The woman on the left is Agent Groves. The woman on the right is Audrey Nathan, cellist for the Portland Philharmonic Orchestra. Ms Nathan and then-Agent Coulson were lovers up until his death at the Battle of New York and his resurrection via GH-325, at which point he was obliged to avoid her to maintain the pretense that he was still dead. These two woman are rather obviously the same person, but this isn't mentioned in the files. And Samantha Groves was recruited while Coulson was on leave in Portland, Oregon."

The other three people in the room looked at each other in alarm.

"Coulson may have been compromised by an unknown third party," Oliver said.

"And now he's being used to locate an entire network of Gifted individuals that SHIELD knew nothing about." Gonzales added.

"Perhaps this has something to do with the Theta Protocol," Weaver suggested. "Thank you for this, Agent Morse. We're going to need to analyze this data more thoroughly. If it means what you fear, we're going to have to step up our plans."

* * *

Several frenetic weeks later, two men sat at a bar in Tahiti.

"What's next, boss?" Hunter asked, as Coulson folded up the napkin and put it away.

"Circle the wagons. Send the word out to our other cells. Get a booth."

Hunter's forehead wrinkled. "'Get a booth...' Is that... code or something for... oh!" Coulson had risen from his chair and was already making his way for one of the enclosed tables lining the wall. Picking up his own bottle, Hunter hurried after his new employer.

"Better to discuss matters of international espionage in a—comparatively—more private location." Coulson said, sliding into the booth. "Alright. Let's go over our assets." he raised an eyebrow at Hunter. "You have transportation, I take it?"

"Stole a mini-sub just to get here." Hunter gave a cocksure grin as he slid across from Coulson.

"So that's a start. And Gonzales and his people have at least one Quinjet." Coulson frowned. "Plus the Bus."

"And eight or nine other Quinjets I left back on the carrier." Hunter said.

"Right. Gonzales commanded the Illiad. It would have a full complement of fighters." Coulson frowned. "Well, fighting isn't the way to resolve this situation anyway."

Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"

"I don't intend to start off my tenure as Director with some sort of civil war." Coulson shook his head. "Gonzales is a good man, and... some of his concerns are legitimate. His methods..." Coulson shook his head. "Seriously, why didn't they just contact me?"

"So... if we're not fighting evil SHIELD, what are we doing?" Hunter asked.

"I broke out for one reason." Coulson settled back in the plush leather. "My people. Gonzales was creepily interested in all the outsiders we've brought on board; it's only a matter of time before he turns his attention on them."

Hunter looked dubious. "All those chaps who popped up during the mansion attack? I say let him try. Some of those blokes were extremely dangerous."

"That's part of what I'm worried about." Coulson took a sip from his drink. "Again, I want to avoid a war here. That's not going to be easy if any of the newcomers feel the need to shoot up SHIELD HQ on some sort of rescue—or if Gonzales's people feel it necessary to imprison a few 'for their own safety.'" Coulson shuddered. "Considering his team's approach to getting-to-know-you parties, I'd prefer to get out ahead of any meeting they have."

"And... what? Marshal an army?"

"Maybe a small one." Coulson rubbed his lip. "A squad. The best move for now, though, is for the rest to go dark. Avoid confrontation, total silence, pull out to whatever safehouses we have."

"Uh-huh." Hunter's voice was flat. "Forgive me for pointing this out, good director, but I'm at a loss as to how that helps us in ANY way."

"We avoid confrontation." Coulson shrugged. "No internal war. But Gonzales knows if he STARTS a war, I have an invisible army willing to back me up. And that the only way to get that army on his side is to work with me."

Hunter considered this. "That... does make sense, sir."

"I hope so." Coulson took another sip from his drink. "I sent the blackout orders out ten minutes ago."

A blink from Hunter. "Sir?"

"Well, I didn't know you were going to show up here." Coulson shrugged. "For all I knew, Gonzales might have had men on their way there already. But there are still two groups I couldn't reach. Our New York and Chicago cells."

"New York." Hunter searched about in his mind a bit. "Innit that the 'Northern Lights' section?"

"That's where the department is based, yes." Coulson nodded. He looked curiously worried. "Unfortunately, being unable to contact them is nothing new. They've been dark for nearly a year now, and they're... very good at hiding." He sighed. "I suppose there's no need to tell them to go dark."

"These people work for you?" Hunter wondered.

"They're sort of like consultants." Coulson gestured wearily. "They have their own problems, which they like to handle on their own." A shrug. "So far, they've done pretty well, and we still have access..." He stopped whatever he was going to say and glanced up at a security camera. "Well. I'm sure they'd let us know if they were ever in any serious trouble."

Hunter was about to comment that he felt like Coulson wasn't really talking to him, when he happened to see the light on the security camera blink several times—far faster than it should.

He blinked. "Sir, are you talking to..."

Coulson turned his attention back to him. "Hunter. Anyone in espionage should know not to ask questions they really don't want the answers to."

Hunter was still puzzled, but he decided to take his superior's advice and just drop it.

"The problem is Chicago." Coulson continued. "Our Special Investigations cell has never been good with technology. They have a network of their own that they use to stay in touch, but I don't know how to contact it from here."

Hunter frowned. "Who are they, sir?"

"People who don't cross over with your department very often." Coulson shrugged. "We're still feeling out what they're best suited for—strengths and weaknesses, etc." He took another drink and studied Hunter for a moment. "You've met at least one of them." He said. "Harry Dresden? Came and gave a talk on danger signs to look out for on 084's?"

"That chap in the long leather coat, with the staff?"

"Mm." Coulson nodded, taking another sip. "Another consultant. Calls himself a wizard. Specializes in magic."

Hunter blinked. "Sorry, magic? As in, pull-a-rabbit-out-of-the-hat, nothing-up-my-sleeve, abra-kadabra?"

"Sort of, except with more fireballs, elves, and werewolves." Coulson agreed. He set his bottle down with a thunk. "Gonzales was especially interested in them, and with his attitude toward powered people, I have a pretty good idea why."

Rising from the booth, he tapped Hunter on the shoulder. "Does your mini-sub have enough fuel to reach the mainland?"

"Think so, so long as we settle for the first port we can find."

"Then as soon as we finish our drinks, we need to head out for a place that's _really_ magical."

* * *

A/N: WAND is the canon name for SHIELD's occult subdivision. STAFF is my own idea. Anyone who can come up with a halfway plausible name that turns into PENTAGRAM, please let me know.

It was established in the first Recruitment Drive chapter ever that Audrey Nathan is _not_ one of Root's numerous aliases, but between their identical appearances, Root's talent at assuming a role, the fact that Root first met Coulson in the building where Audrey worked at a time when Audrey was also there, and Real SHIELD's tendency to interpret all incoming data so that it matches their own preconceptions, you can see why they'd think she was. Coulson at present has not connected the dots to realize that Gonzales doesn't know that they are two different people with the same face.

Demonreach is probably one of the most secure facilities in the galaxy, and if anyone breaches it, it will explode with sufficient force to obliterate North America. Anything capable of doing that and surviving is not going to get significantly more dangerous if it gets a hold of an ancient Kree gene-splicing tool, or anything else that SHIELD is likely to be able to successfully capture.

I wrote the first section of this story, and Afalstein performed a complete rewrite of what I originally had for the second.


	2. Chapter 2

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

Chapter 2

Tomas Calderon looked at the large stone building the two agents stood in front of.

"So this is where Special Investigations is based."

"They weren't kidding when they said that their headquarters was a castle." Bobbi Morse agreed.

The building really was a castle. Given that public records stated that it had been an apartment building until it had been destroyed in a fire a few years back, somebody must have deliberately arranged for the new structure erected on the land to look like an archetypal medieval structure. Bobbi wasn't sure she wanted to know why.

"Do you think Coulson stashed Skye here?"

"No, or at least not yet."

"But this is where he's gathering his Enhanced weapons."

"I don't think Skye counts as a weapon at the moment. When I last saw her she was as much of a danger to herself as she was to everyone else, and everybody knew it. A weapon you can't aim and can't turn off is only useful for suicide missions. Coulson's not going to try using her as a weapon until she can control whatever it is she does." Tomas grunted, conceding the point.

There was a enormous man of Scandinavian descent at the front door. The two SHIELD agents took one glance and immediately classified him as a security guard.

"Can I help you?" The guard asked in a thick Scandinavian accent.

Bobbi produced her badge. "We'd like to speak with Ms. Murphy."

The guard examined the badge carefully, then opened the door for them.

The area immediately inside the door looked innocuous. It was clearly for the eyes of people who got past the door but weren't cleared to know of the real purpose of the Brighter Futures Society. Once past that area, the two agents saw things that they easily recognized the purpose of even if their specific design wasn't what they were used to - labs, briefing rooms, training areas and the like. Finally they reached Karrin Murphy's office.

The first thing they noticed in the office was the SHIELD emblem on the wall, the first such they had seen in the building. The second thing they noticed was that it wasn't the standard SHIELD emblem they were used to. Superimposed on the SHIELD eagle was a five pointed star. Surrounding it were the words Possessions, Evocations, Necromancy, Thaumaturgy, Aspects, and Glamours Research Agency of Mortals.

A short woman sitting behind a desk stood as they entered.

"Agent Murphy?" Bobbi asked. "I'm Agent Morse, and this is Agent Calderon."

"Welcome to PENTAGRAM, agents. What brings agents from the main office here? Normally we get word from the Playground if something comes up that they need an in-person meeting for, and I didn't get any word about you two."

So they were acting suspicious just by being there. Terrific. Bobbi hurriedly thought up a reason to show up announced.

"We came here to do an independent assessment of the security surrounding the Obelisk. Since you're our primary point of contact with the Warden, we thought we'd check in with you first."

"You want to visit Demonreach?" Murphy asked skeptically. "It's not a very pleasant place. Still, the Director never went beyond the beach the one he visited, and I'm the only other person in SHIELD who's ever been there, so I can see why he might want to have someone take a look around."

Bobbi raised an eyebrow "A SHIELD facility that nobody in SHIELD has ever been to?"

"Demonreach has been in operation longer than SHIELD has existed. And nobody has ever removed anyone or anything from the island without authorization in that entire time."

That was an impressive claim, if it was true. "You're sure of that?"

Murphy nodded. "And most of the things locked up in there are far worse than the handful of 084s that the Director arranged to be added to the collection. And if anything ever breaches the prison proper, the entire place will self-destruct."

"I've seen people get caught in explosions that should have killed them and turn up again and ready to cause trouble before." Tomas pointed out.

"Not like this." Murphy disagreed. "The self-destruct won't collapse the facility, it will completely obliterate the entire island, as well as the surrounding area." Murphy shuddered as she considered the subject at hand. "Quite a lot of the surrounding area, actually. Anything capable of surviving that likely wouldn't care about some funny alien rocks."

Both SHIELD agents froze in shock. Even if Demonreach was a fairly small island, a blast that could essentially erase an island would be nuclear or something made from unknown tech with equivalent destructive power. How in the world did Coulson manage to build and maintain a bomb that big? The governments that had provided SHIELD with its nuclear arsenal had been very careful in making sure that every one of those weapons was returned to its nation of origin after HYDRA's existence had been exposed.

"Is that the Theta Protocol?" Tomas asked.

"Theta Protocol?" Murphy sounded honestly confused.

"Coulson's secret project! Your facility on Demonreach, all the Enhanced individuals that you've been collecting without Indexing them, the manufacture of nuclear-grade destructive capacity, all of it! Coulson's planning to use SHIELD to make his own personal army!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't lie to me. We know that you have information on hundreds of Gifted and non-human individuals and haven't added them to the Index. Why would you be doing this if you weren't part of Coulson's plans?"

"Because I have no right to do so." Murphy bluntly stated. "Given SHIELD's official status in the supernatural world, demanding that everyone my people have to work with be Indexed would be roughly equivalent to Sokovia demanded unlimited inspection rights on NATO's nuclear arsenals."

"You're exaggerating." Bobbi protested.

"Yes, I am. Nobody takes Sokovia seriously, but the world does acknowledge that it's a country. At this time, SHIELD has **no** official status in the supernatural world whatsoever. Every scrap of influence that PENTAGRAM has at this time comes from the personal relationships our agents have with specific individuals who do have official status. Now, what's this about Director Coulson and this Theta Protocol?"

Bobbi rushed to regain control of the conversation from her colleague. She explained everything that the Council had learned about Theta Protocol and their suspicions that Coulson had been compromised by some combination of the GH325 drug and the woman known as Root.

"You know, back when I was running Special Investigations for the CPD, I learned that one of my consultants was keeping information from me. I assumed that meant that he was involved in the case I was investigating and had him locked up. As direct result of that, I ended up with a loup-garou rampaging through my precinct. Quite a few good men ended up needing closed casket funerals, including my partner. That was a painful lesson in jumping to conclusions too quickly. I'm wondering if you're making the same mistake here."

"You dispute the authority of the SHIELD Council?" Tomas demanded.

"What SHIELD Council? I'd never even heard of this council until a few minutes ago, and from the way you described what was going on I'm willing to bet nobody else has either. You can't accuse a man of keeping you in the dark when he has no idea that you exist or have a need to know. Maybe Agent Groves does have a hidden agenda. I only met her once, and that in passing, so I can't make any solid judgments one way or the other. But you have yet to show me any evidence that the Director needed to be removed from power, or that you had any legal standing to do so.

"If you want to do further investigation on Demonreach, you're welcome to try. But I'd lay odds that no matter what you try, you won't be able to set foot on the island without being detected."

Tomas tried to cow Murphy into submission, but the other agent had spent decades policing the streets of Chicago. All his efforts got him was to have a couple of the giant Scandinavians show up and frog march him out of the building. Bobbi followed quietly, knowing that she caused any trouble, she'd end up getting evicted just as forcefully.

* * *

Tomas Calderon watched as Agent Morse pored over a set of nautical charts for Lake Michigan.

"There's no evidence of any island anywhere being named Demonreach, but that could easily just be a codename that nobody who isn't affiliated with Coulson's facility there knows about. But given that Murphy appears to be Coulson's point of contact with the people who run it, it has to be somewhere nearby." She said.

"How could Coulson possibly have acquired a nuke?" Tomas wondered.

"If Agent Murphy's comments before she started clamming up are accurate, he didn't. Murphy was running her own organization until Coulson absorbed most of it into SHIELD during the recruitment drive. Demonreach must have been run by one of the people who didn't come over. Which instead invites the question of where Murphy got the nuke from. Along with the questions of why Coulson never did anything about it, and trusts an outsider to guard dangerous alien artifacts."

"Obviously Murphy trusts this Warden with SHIELD's secrets. The question is whether or not we can. Or her, for that matter. She's pretty much flat-out stated that she doesn't recognize the authority of the Council."

"If you look at it from her perspective, she does have a point. She worked for Coulson, and was never told that Coulson also has to be accountable to others. If we want to make further progress with PENTAGRAM, we're going to have to get them to understand that the Council has the authority to call the Director to account for his actions and was justified in doing so."

"First we're going to need to gather more information," Tomas commented, "And I think I know just where to go in order to get the word on the street."

With that, he strode out of the hanger in which they had parked their plane. Taking out a GPS unit, he programmed in the address of the pub that seemed to the watering hole of choice for the entire Enhanced community of Chicago.

* * *

McAnally's Pub was a dimly lit basement. Tomas' trained eyes noted that everything in the pub was done in thirteens. Thirteen pillars. Thirteen fans. Thirteen tables. Thirteen stools at the bar proper. Perhaps there was some occult significance to the number? He'd have to ask one of the boffins in the Analysis division when he got back. Prominently displayed on the pillar closest to the door when he came in was a sign reading 'ACCORDED NEUTRAL TERRITORY'.

A quick scan of the room showed him that though the pub was crowded, the bartender did not have any staff helping out. Anyone who wanted to order something had to go to the bar, and then return to pick it up when it was ready. After waiting for the line at the bar to recede, Tomas headed up, ordered a beer, and headed to a table that only had one person sitting at it. Tomas couldn't be sure in the dim light, but he thought the young man sitting there looked like someone who had been on the way out of the castle as he and Bobbi had been heading in.

"Mind if I sit here?" He asked.

"Sure," The young man replied. Then he looked closer at the other man. "Didn't I see you at the office earlier today?" He inquired.

Tomas pulled out his badge, flipped it open briefly, and then returned it to his coat. "Tomas Calderon. I'm from the main office."

"Daniel Carpenter."

The two enjoyed their drinks while discussing work in sufficiently vague terms that anyone eavesdropping from one of the other tables would not be able to infer anything of importance by doing so. This went on for two beers until the girl arrived.

The girl was rather obviously a goth. Her hair had been dyed into multiple colors, and her face sported multiple piercings. Her outfit looked like it was entirely made of rags, though as she walked to the bar, Tomas could see that it was actually far more intact than it appeared at first glance, as though it had been deliberately tailored to look like it was made out of rags. After collecting her own drink, she headed straight for his table. Or more accurately, Carpenter's table.

"Well, if it isn't the Rag Lady," Daniel said.

"Hello, there, Danny," The woman said as she sat down. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Tomas Calderon. He works for a different branch of the company I work at. Tomas, this is my older sister Molly. She used to work for the Brighter Futures Society before your lot bought us out." Tomas translated that as one of Murphy's people who Coulson hadn't snagged in the recruitment drive for some reason. "So, what brings you back to Chicago, sis?"

Molly sighed. "The usual. Trying to clean up yet another one of Maeve's messes. Murph definitely did the world a favor when she a bullet through her head."

"Who was Maeve?" Tomas inquired.

"Maeve was a key figure in... an associated organization," Daniel said delicately. Tomas inwardly cursed that they were discussing everything so obliquely, but he couldn't demand that he be given straight answers in the middle of a pub, especially since he had been just as vague in his own answers earlier. "She ended up going over to the enemy. When Murphy and the Warden took her down, she was trying to let in an assault that would have made New York look like a children's squabble. Afterwards, Molly ended up getting hired away to take over Maeve's job."

That implied that Ms Carpenter's new employers were a potential threat on the order of Loki. "Why isn't this associated organization Indexed?"

"Indexing?" Daniel laughed, "There are still people who think that's even possible? The White Council has most of the world's top magical talents, has been operating for centuries, and only enforces seven simple rules. And they haven't even come close to being able to track and control every mage on the planet. What makes you think anyone else could do better?"

"Besides," Molly joined in, "My new employers are a bit... out of your jurisdiction."

That statement drove Tomas over the edge. "OUT OF OUR JURISDICTION?!" He raged, "We're SHIELD! The entire world is our jurisdiction!"

"SHIELD doesn't have any authority under the Accords. I and my Court do."

"Do you think SHIELD cares about your silly Accords?" Tomas scoffed.

The temperature around the table suddenly seemed to drop. Tomas almost thought he saw frost forming on the glasses.

"You should," Molly said, "Do you know what happened to the last person to deliberately cause a major breach of the Accords?"

"Are you threatening me?"

"No, I'm just giving fair warning."

"I'm through with your little games, girl," Tomas pulled out a pair of steel handcuffs.

The moment the cuffs touched Molly's wrists something strange happened. The girl screamed in agony as her skin hissed like something exposed to acid in a cheap movie. Tomas wondered why the girl was reacting like that when Daniel punched him in the face. Before Tomas to recover, the barman grabbed him. Tomas watched the PENTAGRAM agent hurriedly remove the handcuff from his sister's wrist - which for some reason looked as if it had been burned - as he was dragged towards the entrance and bounced out the door.

Karrin Murphy was standing at the top of the stairs as he staggered up them.

"What happened here, Mac?" She asked. "I've never seen you evict anyone from the pub before."

The barman spoke as if words were being rationed, but his tone was cold "Denied the Accords. Tried to Index Lady Carpenter. Bound her with Cold Iron."

"He _WHAT?!_ " Murphy looked appalled. "Agent Calderon, did you bother to read any of the briefing information that I sent to Director Coulson before I agreed to merge the Brighter Future Society with SHIELD? Because there was a lot of information on what the Accords are and a basic code of conduct when dealing with the supernatural, and you just broke all of it."

"I did what had to be done..." He protested, but Murphy cut him off.

"Shut up. I told you that SHIELD is not only not a major player in the paranormal world, we're not even officially in the game yet. And the only way to get into the game is to sign onto the Unseelie Accords. Spitting on the Accords is a great way to ensure that we don't get invited to do so.

"SHIELD doesn't have any authority here. What we have is connections and cooperation, both of which you may have just destroyed with your idiotic actions. What you did was the effective equivalent of causing an international incident in a neutral embassy, publicly announcing that you have no intention of respecting the Geneva Conventions, and then assaulting a major official of a superpower for an encore."

"That goth couldn't be..."

"Yes she is. Molly Carpenter left the Brighter Futures Society to be one of the top figures in the most powerful paranormal nations in existence. A nation with a very well deserved reputation for inventively cruel retaliations on anyone who breaches the Accords.

"Get out of Chicago, and take your partner with you. When you next report to this Council of yours, please tell them that your stupidity has ensured that the only way SHIELD will ever be able to work in the occult world again is if I can convince the Fae that you and the Council do _not_ speak for SHIELD."

Murphy turned and stormed away. Before she got into her car, she pulled a phone from a thick metal case and called a number.

"Sound the alarm, we're going to need to fort up." She said.

"Winter is coming."

* * *

A\N: My thanks to all the people who provided me with suggestions for what PENTAGRAM might stand for. The acronym I decided to use was created by Wings of Lead.

Mab and Molly's revenge isn't going to be as cruel as what happened in Skin Games, but they're definitely going to make life for 'Real' SHIELD highly unpleasant until they acknowledge that their attitude towards superhumans and non-humans is unacceptable and make reparations. Any suggestions on what they can include as part of the retaliation are welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

Chapter 2

The train slowed to a stop at Chicago Union Station and disgorged its passengers. Among those two passengers were two fugitive SHIELD agents.

"And I thought British Rail was slow." Hunter said.

"Agreed, but you don't need to go through Homeland Security checkpoints to use Amtrak," Coulson pointed out, "Let me check the L routes to figure out how to get to our destination."

"Hopefully it won't take too long. Spring just started. Why is it so bloody cold?"

It took them half an hour to reach the headquarters of PENTAGRAM. Once they were at the castle, Coulson found that the guard looked like the base was on high alert for some reason.

"Can I help you?" The large man at the door asked.

"I'm Director Coulson, this is Agent Hunter. We need to speak with Agent Murphy. Can we come in?"

"I don't know. Can you?" The man stepped aside, but did not open the door.

"Alright, wise guy," Hunter said. "MAY we come in?"

"No, I phrased it right. I want to see if you two are physically capable of crossing the threshold without my permission."

Hunter's briefly wondered about that exchange, and his mind recalled bits of some bad Hammer Horror movies. "Daring us to enter without an invitation. Is he checking to see if we're vampires or something?"

"Possibly," Coulson admitted. He opened the door and stepped through, with Hunter following. Nothing happened.

The inside of the castle looked just as tense as the outside. They were stopped at another security checkpoint before reaching Murphy's office.

"We're going to need further proof of identity before you go any further." The young man in front of them said.

"You've met me before, Agent Borden." Coulson pointed out.

"I've met Director Coulson before, yes. And you do look like him. But I'll need more proof than that." He held out a pair of needles. "Bleed."

"What the bloody..." Hunter began.

"If you're imposters under a glamour, pricking yourself with a steel needle will dispel the illusion. And shapeshifters can't emulate human blood."

"Maybe we need add those to the list of things we need to test with the lie detector chair," Coulson quipped as he took one of the needles and pricked his finger.

After watching a drop of blood form on each of the visitor's fingers, Agent Borden relaxed.

"Okay, now that I'm sure that you're human, you can come in. Sorry about that. Things have been rather tense since that stunt the people from that other SHIELD pulled."

"They've already been through?" Hunter asked. "I knew we shouldn't have taken the train."

* * *

"No, you listen to _me_ , Commander. Do you know what happened to the last person to commit a large-scale infraction against the Accords? Let me tell you. Mab manipulated him into destroying his professional reputation to the point where it will be centuries before any other faction in the supernatural community will trust him enough to take a job from him, murdering his own daughter, and then, for an encore, humiliated him in front of his own men to the point where they all jumped ship. I'd gone up against Nicodemus a few times before all that happened to him, and know first hand that he's a complete monster, and even I think it was cruel.

"Maybe you're willing to risk the wrath of the Winter Court over an incident where your man was clearly in the wrong, but I'm not. Stay out of Chicago and do not contact us again until you and your Council are willing accept responsibility for your actions and make reparations." Murphy slammed the phone down.

"I take it that was about the incident that Agent Borden mentioned earlier?" A voice chimed in.

Looking up, Murphy saw Director Coulson, along with another man she didn't recognize.

"Director. I was hoping you'd be trying to get in contact with me after what happened a few days ago. Could you tell me what this SHIELD Council and what's going on?"

Coulson paused to collect his thoughts. "The SHIELD Council is a self-appointed group founded by loyal agents who successfully held off HYDRA's attack last year and banded together. I had no idea they existed until they attacked the Playground last week, though I had been trying to find out what had happened to some of their members."

"When their representatives showed up, they claimed that you were keeping secrets - some project called Theta Protocol that you were planning to use for some kind of power grab, and that they relieved you because of it. They got really upset when I asked what authority they had to do so."

"Of course I'm keeping secrets. That's my job," Coulson pointed out. "I know that you're keeping secrets from me as well, but I'm not going to remove you over them unless I can prove that they're endangering my people or the mission. As for Theta Protocol, all you need to know is that it has absolutely nothing to do with your department. I was actually looking for the leader of the Council because I was hoping to put him in charge of the project. If he'd approached me about it openly, I'd have read him in within an hour of his clearing the security screen."

Murphy facepalmed. "If what you're saying is true, then they really are jumping to conclusions too quickly - something that their side of the story made rather possible. The closest thing they had to proof of anything is rather suggestive evidence that Agent Groves is up to something, but they have no idea what."

"She could be," Coulson admitted, "But so long as HYDRA is around, her immediate goals coincide with SHIELD's. Until then, she can be trusted to act against them. Now, what exactly did the Council's representatives do that has you on high alert?"

Coulson's listened as Murphy described the incident that Agent Calderon had kicked off while he had been traveling to Chicago. Coulson grimaced.

"So this guy harassed a girl in a pub," Hunter said, "Why are you acting like this is a major calamity?"

"If it was that simple, it wouldn't be," Murphy admitted. "Unfortunately, Molly Carpenter isn't just any girl, and Mac's isn't just any pub. The closest analogy in the mundane world would be if you assaulted the Vice President of the United States in the canteen of a neutral embassy."

"And SHIELD has enough problems right now without picking a fight with a paranormal superpower," Coulson agreed. "Agent Murphy, try to see if you can get me a meeting with either Ms Carpenter or a representative. We need to smooth things over before things get any worse."

* * *

The next day, Murphy took Coulson and Hunter to McAnnaly's Pub for the meeting. Standing on the other side of the bar was a woman in her early twenties, with a bandage wrapped around one wrist.

"Lady Winter, be known to Philip James Coulson, Director of SHIELD," Murphy formally introduced them. "Director, be known to Lady Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter, Queen-to-be of the Winter Fae."

Coulson bowed. "My Lady."

The woman's eyes were cold. "Why should I wish to speak with SHIELD, given the insult given to me the last time they spoke to me?"

"I came here to discuss that incident with you. If you wish, you may ask our host to confirm that I have no iron on my person as a sign of good faith." Coulson had made sure of that before going to the meeting. It hadn't surprised him that Murphy had commissioned several outfits that had no metal fasteners for agents sent on diplomatic meetings with the Fae. He had borrowed one in his size for the occasion.

At Lady Winter's nod, Coulson was searched and revealed to be clean. The two sat down at one of the tables.

"Lady Winter, on behalf of SHIELD I would like to formally apologize for the incident that occurred last week. Agent Calderon was not acting under my orders when he attacked you. SHIELD has no grounds or desire to seek a conflict with Winter."

"If that is the case, why was he here to seek a quarrel?" The air grew colder.

Coulson sighed. "Calderon is part of a group that was presumed lost in the aftermath of the Insight incident last year. They do not acknowledge my authority at this time."

The woman raised one eyebrow. "A leader whose subordinates refuse to follow?"

"A matter I am working to correct. While I cannot speak for the faction that Calderon has aligned himself with, I am willing to offer reparations for the breach of the Accords on behalf of my own."

Lady Winter paused to think. "There is a task that I need done. I would consider its completion to be appropriate reparation."

"And what would that task be?"

The woman laughed briefly. "Not going to agree to it in advance? I see that SHIELD doesn't pick fools to lead them," She produced a folder. "This will provide you with information on a dangerous item that has gotten loose in the mortal world. The task is to bring the item, or proof of its destruction, to me."

Coulson picked up the folder and walked over to his colleagues.

"What was that bit about not agreeing to it in advance about?" Hunter asked.

"Every study mythology? There are tales all over the place about people promising to do someone a favor without asking what the favor is first, and find themselves obliged to do something they regret," Coulson pointed out.

"I can name a few times I got caught with that by my ex-wife." Hunter conceded.

"So what is the item she wants us to track down?" Murphy wondered, opening the folder. Then she froze. "Uh-oh,"

"You know what that is?" Coulson inquired.

"I know of it. And if it's currently in circulation, we need to find it and either lock it up in Demonreach or give it the Mount Doom treatment as soon as possible."

"It looks like an old knife." Hunter said.

"It isn't just an old knife. It's the Athame of Morgan le Fae."

* * *

In the heart of Arctis Tor, Molly Carpenter stood before Mab, Queen-that-is of the Winter Fae.

"So you have accepted this Coulson's apology?" Mab inquired.

"Not quite, but while his people are endeavoring to recover that knife for us as a sign of good faith I believe we should leave them alone. If we can secure the Athame, Nemesis' ability to influence matters on this side of the Gates will be reduced considerably. It is not in our best interests to hinder them."

"And what of this other faction? This SHIELD Council? Will you send the Knight to avenge you?"

Molly knew she was being tested. "No. At least not yet. I don't want to kill them. There are _other_ ways to express my displeasure."

* * *

A/N: Coulson's middle name is unknown, but his middle initial is J, so I chose something.

The Athame is a canon DF artifact, that has been causing problems for a very long time.

Molly is acting OOC, but this is a very formal situation, and given what happened she's resisting the urge to use her skills in illusion to make random SHIELD agents mistake the traffic signals on busy intersections. So she's channeling Mab to make it clear that she's speaking as the Winter Lady, not Molly Carpenter.

Next time, the Council learns why you shouldn't meddle in the affairs of fairies. They are inventive and quick to anger.


	4. Chapter 4

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

Chapter 3

Hank Thompson leaned back in his chair. It would only be another half hour before he could close his business for the day and head home. Welding wasn't exactly a glamorous or exciting job, but he wouldn't give up his life with his family for anything.

The phone rang. Hank picked it up. "Thompson Welding."

"Hello, Mr. Thompson," A woman's voice said. "A friend of mine said that he could always count on you if he needed a welder."

"It's nice to have recommendations like that." He admitted.

"My friend's name is Coulson."

Hank froze. When he told the Director of SHIELD that they always count on him if they needed a welder, he hadn't expected that the need would actually come up.

"We need you to build a special container for us. I'm faxing the details to you now."

The fax machine started printing out a set of specifications. They described a small metal box. A box with rather thick sides that could be hermetically sealed and made from a rather exotic alloy, which he noted was non-ferrous.

"What in the world are you planning to put in this thing?"

"If your name was still Cameron Klein, I'd tell you that you don't need to know. Since you're now called Hank Thompson, I'll just say that you don't WANT to know."

* * *

Agent Bobbi Morse watched as her partner was carted off the Quinjet towards the infirmary, the foot-long splinter of wood still sticking from his shoulder.

"Do you still think that Skye isn't a weapon?" Agent Weaver asked.

"She's a lot closer than she was," Bobbi admitted. "She can now aim her powers, and turn them on at will. But I think she was just as surprised at how big that blast was as we were. So she can't really control the power level yet. Of course, if Coulson just wants to use her as a breaching tool, she's ready to go right now."

If anything, that was an understatement. The newly Enhanced SHIELD agent had managed to reduce several dozen rather large trees into splinters with a gesture. That much power could probably blow a hole through any wall ever built, unless someone was willing to spend the GDP of a small country to build said wall out of vibranium.

"But Tomas wouldn't have been injured if he hadn't disobeyed orders and used lethal ammunition when I explicitly said to use ICERs only. And there's also what he did that got us thrown out of Chicago."

"I see nothing wrong with Agent Calderon's actions," Commander Gonzales said. "We needed to demonstrate SHIELD's authority in the Enhanced subcommunity, and Agent Skye needed to be contained by any means."

There was another agent who overheard the conversation as Calderon's gurney was wheeled to the infirmary.

"What happened in Chicago?" Agent Melinda May asked.

Bobbi gave her a brief explanation of what had happened at PENTAGRAM's headquarters and what she knew of the incident in the pub. The other agent grimaced.

"I hope you people are willing to go over every operation Coulson had in the field or was planning to launch. Agent Murphy isn't going to lend her agents to you people now, and without PENTAGRAM and their Way-walkers, a lot of insertion and extraction plans will have to be completely rewritten."

"Way-walkers?" Bobbi inquired.

"One of PENTAGRAM's tricks, and one that justifies everything we've spent on them. Murphy has people who can travel just about anywhere in the world, bypassing all border checkpoints, ports and airports in the process. They can literally cross oceans in a matter of hours, without using any boats or aircraft."

"That's a useful trick," Weaver admitted "If they can take people with them, they could insert or extract a team anywhere in the world within a day."

"And since PENTAGRAM has sided with Coulson, he can use that to send teams against us." Gonzales added.

"Add you'll never see them coming into they're in position to strike." May confirmed with a slight smirk. "Calderon made an enemy for you that he didn't have to. Possibly more than one. You might want to think on that."

With that, the Coulson loyalist turned and walked away.

* * *

Agents Fitz, Simmons, and House were eating together. As part of the decided minority of Coulson loyalists in the Playground, they tended to stick together, no matter how irritating the physician was.

"Will you two just make out already?" House grumbled. "Everyone's sick of watching you two dance around each other."

Fitz and Simmons deliberately avoided at each other. Everyone else in the room tried to avoid looking at the deliberately tactless doctor.

"So…" Fitz said hurriedly in an effort to change the subject, "What's going on in the medical wing? The newcomers in our section are all busy trying to open Fury's Toolbox."

"The surgeons are all busy trying to patch up some idiot who managed to get a tree branch blown through his shoulder. I have no idea how he managed to do that."

"He tried to shoot Skye, and she shot back," May said as she sat down at the table, carrying a partially empty six-pack of beer. "You might want to be politer the next time you ask her for a blood sample, doctor. She's apparently gotten enough control over her powers that she could do the same to you if she wants to."

House considered that as May distributed the beer around the table.

"Is Skye alright?" Simmons asked.

"From what I heard, she wasn't hurt. She blew up several trees, skewered Calderon with one of the splinters, knocked Bobbi on her ass, and then fled. I don't where she is right now, but I don't think anyone else knows either."

"Is that the Director's private stock?" Fitz asked, noting the label on the bottles.

"What's the occasion?" Simmons wondered.

"The same guy who tried to kill Skye also caused a major incident in Chicago, in the worst possible location." May said. "Agent Murphy said that violating neutral ground would be punished by becoming the enemy of everyone who signs onto the Accords, and losing access to the proprietor's beer.

"I'm not sure what the people Calderon offended are going to try to do, but since the Council has ensured that we're not going to be able to get any more of this until the incident is resolved, they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy any of it."

"I think I can agree with that logic," House chimed in.

The four agents each opened a bottle, clinked them together and drank them.

Then Fitz shivered and looked around. "Is it just me, or is it getting cold in here?"

* * *

"So," Gonzales asked. "What did you learn from this PENTAGRAM agency before they threw you out of Chicago?"

"Well, for starters, Agent Murphy denied all knowledge of Theta Protocol, and disputed that we had sufficient grounds to move against Coulson when we did." Bobbi reported.

"That's easy to say when you don't have much direct contact with his operations." Mack said.

"What about the Warden?" Gonzales asked.

"He's apparently not affiliated with SHIELD or PENTAGRAM."

"And Coulson trusts him with the Obelisk?"

"If Murphy's to believed, his facility has been securing things worse than that for longer than SHIELD's existed."

"And where is this facility?" Weaver joined in.

"Murphy called it Demonreach. It's apparently located on an island, or possibly takes up the entire island. She also implied that it's got a perfect security record, a top-notch sensor system, and a self-destruct that could vaporize the entire island."

"If the Warden didn't get that stuff from SHIELD, where did he get it from? That kind of gear isn't easy to come by." Mack wondered.

"I haven't a clue, and that worries me. I'm pretty sure the island is somewhere in the Great Lakes. Once we can narrow it down, we can try sending someone there to investigate."

Just then, an agent came in with something. "Sir, we just intercepted a transmission from the Chicago branch. It seems that they were trying to send it out to various other SHIELD bases around the world." He handed a copy of the transmission to Gonzales.

"Hmm… it seems that Agent Murphy is looking for a certain sixth century dagger. And Coulson appears to have signed off on this as well. What's this code that they're mentioning here?"

Mack walked over and looked over the Commander's shoulder. "Oh, that. Over the summer Coulson brought in a consultant – a really tall guy in a leather duster - to lecture us on how to assess the possible danger of unknown artifacts and how to handle them afterwards. Those codes were derived from that lecture."

"So what does this code mean?" Bobbi asked.

"Really bad. Under that system, something like Thor's hammer would be pretty low – no matter how much Thor can do with the thing, if you or I tried to lift it, the worst that's likely to happen is that we'd pull something while trying to get it off the ground. The Obelisk would be much higher up – if we tried to pick it up, it would kill us, but we'd probably be dead before anyone else got hurt. This is much higher – basically, it says to treat the knife as if it's contaminated with something nasty and highly contagious."

"That would explain why the instructions say not to even attempt to retrieve the dagger, just to find it. Murphy apparently is prepping a special team to handle the retrieval personally. I wonder what Coulson wants with it."

"At least we now know where Coulson is." Weaver said.

"Not if May was telling the truth about those Way-walkers," Bobbi pointed out. "If they can really transport people that quickly, he could have left Chicago after drafting the message and be in Sweden by now. And we wouldn't know it unless he decided to send us a selfie from Stockholm to mock our inability to catch him."

"Still, at least it's a data point showing where he's been." Gonzales said. "Try to narrow down where Demonreach is, and let's keep tabs on Murphy's search for that dagger. We need to know what they're planning to do with it." Then he shivered. "And somebody turn up the heat."

* * *

It wasn't just people's imagination. It was getting colder in the Playground. Even when they set the thermostat to full blast, the temperature still dropped. After a day of gradually dropping temperature, Gonzales sent Mackenzie to take a look at the building's furnace.

The engineer found that the furnace had gone cold. Very cold. The exterior of the furnace was almost freezing to the touch. He tried to restart the furnace. Nothing happened. He tried again. Again, nothing happened.

For the next half hour, Agent Mackenzie tried to use the furnace controls to get it to restart. No matter what he did, the device remained inert. Resigning himself to the fact that it would take more effort to repair, he got out a wrench and started opening it up. And then he stared.

"What the..."

The interior of the furnace was a block of solid ice.

* * *

"How does ice spontaneously form in a furnace? Especially one that is running at the time?" Weaver demanded.

"I don't know," Mack admitted. "It wasn't normal ice, either. Hitting it with an axe barely chipped it. We had to use a thermite charge to get the stuff to melt. And when it finally did melt, it dissolved into this funny goop that evaporated a few minutes later."

"Strange," Gonzales mused. "Very strange."

The Council was still thinking on what could possibly have shut off the heat when another agent entered.

"Excuse me, but we just got a communication from the Iliad. They say it's snowing."

"They called just to give us a weather report?" Bobbi asked, then paused. "Wait a minute, unless they've moved a lot further north than they were when I was last on board, they shouldn't be seeing snow at this time of year. And every weather service on the planet would be tracking an unseasonable snowfall like that. How did they not see it coming?"

"That's just it, ma'am. The clouds just formed without warning. There is only snow falling within a few miles of the Iliad. The snowstorm is centered around the ship, and is matching its course whenever they try sailing out of it."

* * *

A/N: Thompson/Klein only appeared in one episode of AoS, and isn't likely to appear in this story again. But Murphy needs something to safely carry the knife once she finds it, and he _did_ say that SHIELD could call on him if they ever needed a welder...

Way-walking would be an invaluable service that PENTAGRAM could provide to SHIELD in general (And already has in earlier Recruitment Drive stories). Even if they can't take large teams or equipment that isn't man-portable with them, being able to insert or remove people anywhere in the world in a manner that cannot be detected by any security checkpoint between the team's home base and the place where they exit the Way in a matter of hours would be priceless. This is the primary way that PENTAGRAM helps SHIELD in non-occult matters.

This is not the entirety of Molly's revenge; it is just the opening salvo.


	5. Chapter 5

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

Chapter 4

Doctor House looked at the results of the tissue sample analysis. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.

"Gentlemen," He announced, "The source of our patient's problem is simple. His wound is infected. And the reason for that is because certain individuals, which I shall leave unnamed, didn't stop to think that a man who had a splinter the size of my arm stuck in him might have contaminants in his wound and thus forgot to put him on an antibiotic regimen after surgery."

"We did put the patient on antibiotics," One of the other doctors protested. "It hasn't done any good."

"If the analyzer is telling the truth, then this isn't even a particularly resistant strain of bacteria that's settling in. So either somebody failed to administer antibiotics or you're using bad drugs."

The doctors who had been attending to the wounded Agent Calderon continued to protest that they had been administering antibiotics, so House took a sample from the patient's IV bag and tested it. He found no trace of any medicine in the IV. The doctors then produced the bottle from which they had taken the medicine which they claimed to have put in the IV.

"I see some traces of medicine in the sample, but they're breaking down. This bottle of medicine has spoiled. Look at the expiration date before you use this stuff! This bottle expired…" House looked at the expiration label, and then suddenly had a double-take. "Six months from now?"

* * *

"It wasn't just that bottle, either." House said as the Coulson loyalists sat around a Scrabble board waiting for their food to be delivered. Looking at his tiles, he selected G, I, V, and E and placed them on the board. "Every single bottle of medicine in the base hospital has gone bad. And it's not because of poor storage, either – the refrigerator we use to keep things fresh is running really well. Just like everything else connected to cold around here."

"That's certainly troubling," May agreed. "It's a good thing we only have one seriously injured person on base. If that had happened after the battle for the Kree city, it would have been much worse." Then she glanced down on the board. "Simmons, names aren't acceptable words."

"What? I haven't moved yet." Simmons protested.

"But it's your move," Fitz pointed out. "If you didn't put GONZALES on the board, who did?"

At that point, a tile lifted itself out of Fitz's tray and placed itself on the board.

"How did that happen?" Simmons wondered. "It shouldn't be possible for tiles to just move like that."

Several more removed themselves from the four player's trays and the bag and arranged themselves to form a message.

C

GONZALES

I L

V D

ME E

R

O

N

"Gonzales… give me Calderon," May read. "It looks like the people who Calderon picked a fight with in Chicago are starting to make their displeasure known."

"Do you think they're also the reason why the furnace keeps icing up?" Simmons asked.

"With all the empowered and exotic individuals that they deal with over in Chicago, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them could do this. Remember, when I first met Murphy's people, their first guess as to what I was a Valkyrie," May's lip twitched up momentarily. "Sif thought that was rather amusing when I told her about it."

"I'll go through the files that Murphy sent us when she first joined SHIELD," Fitz offered. "They might have a clue on exactly who Calderon pissed off."

Just then the cook entered the room. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but it appears that lunch will have to be delayed.

All the food in the refrigerator has spoiled."

* * *

"So, in addition to the Iliad being stalked by a decidedly unnatural snowstorm, which is causing NOAA to wonder what is causing such bizarre weather in the central Atlantic and might very well get our carrier located and seized by the US government, it appears that every single perishable that hasn't been frozen is now spoiled," Agent Weaver reported. "And thawing out the frozen supplies isn't an option."

Weaver lifted a pair of tongs to reveal a frozen chicken breast. She dropped the chicken to the table, where it promptly shattered like fine crystal. A few moments later, the frost coating the fragments melted into a strange ooze.

"It's all like that. We've been trying to analyze what that strange substance is, but it evaporates within a matter of minutes, no matter how we try to preserve it. All attempts to remove it from the frozen items has also resulted in the near total destruction of the items in question as well."

"What could be causing this?" Gonzales asked.

"We're not sure, but it appears to be connected to one of the operations that Agent Calderon was involved in before he was nearly killed trying to apprehend Agent Skye," Agent Oliver stated. "The message 'Give Me Calderon' has been appearing in letters of frost all over the base."

"We won't be doing that. Calderon is an Agent of SHIELD. Everything he was doing was perfectly justified."

"That mentality is why so many other intelligence agencies are so eagerly annexing of the SHIELD resources they can find," Agent Morse pointed out.

Gonzales brushed that aside. "Have we found anything about Theta Protocol in Coulson's computer?" He asked.

"Nothing in the files I've been able to access explains what it is in any detail," Agent Mackenzie said. "There is one file I found that Coulson apparently accessed at least once a day, but I only found it right before this meeting, so I'm not sure what it is."

"Open it now." Gonzales commanded.

Mackenzie plugged a thumb drive into the meeting room computer and accessed a file. An image of two men confronting each other appeared on the monitor.

" **Enough!** You are, all of you are beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by..."

 ***CRASH* *SMASH* *THUD***

"Puny god."

The video clip lingered on the image of Loki whimpering in pain as he lay embedded in the floor of what was once Tony Stark's living room before fading out.

Everyone in the room blinked.

"I think I can guess why Coulson likes watching this." Morse quipped.

"Moving on…" Gonzales said hastily. "Any progress on locating the Demonreach facility?"

"There are no islands or island facilities by that name," Morse reported. "However, when doing a historical search, I found an anomaly in the maps of Lake Michigan."

"Oh?" Agent Weaver inquired.

"If you look at some really old maps of the area, there's an island that doesn't appear on modern maps. I cross-referenced against satellite imagery, and the island is still there, it just doesn't get put on the maps."

"That must be where Demonreach is." Agent Oliver said.

"If it is, then Murphy wasn't kidding about the facility predating SHIELD. The island stopped being recorded on maps in 1907. That's a good thirty years before the founding of the SSR."

"What do you know about this island?" Gonzales asked.

"Given that it dropped off the books over a century ago, not much. It looks like there were a few attempts to establish a lighthouse and a small fishing and furring industry there at the end of the 19th century, but they all failed. It seems that everyone who tried to settle there died in accidents or ended up going mad for no apparent reason. Even people who just visited for a few days would have nightmares about the place for years. Eventually the survivors all returned to the mainland and checked themselves into mental hospitals, and society as a whole did its best to try to forget the place."

"Interesting security system. I wonder how they pulled it off." Agent Mackenzie mused.

"You'll find out when you get there," Gonzales said. "Bobbi, Mack, take a Quinjet and investigate this island."

* * *

The cloaked Quinjet soared over the waters of Lake Michigan. Murphy had implied that the island had a first rate sensor net installed on it, so she was using every possible trick to evade detection she knew. At the low altitude and speed she was travelling at, the Quinjet wouldn't show up on radar before she was right on top of it even if the cloak wasn't up.

"Sensors aren't picking up anything," Mack reported. "I can't even pick up any sign of a power grid. Maybe this isn't the right island."

"We still need to take a look. Islands don't get removed from the maps for no reason," Bobbi pointed out. "I'm going to make a pass over the island. Let me know if you see any place we can land."

The eleven decades between the last time man had settled on the island and their visit had erased virtually all traces of human habitation. The only thing that poked above the level of the trees was the ruins of the lighthouse, which had yet to fully collapse. It glowed eerily in the moonlight, probably from some kind of luminescent moss that by now was likely the only thing holding some of the bricks together.

After circling the entire island from a couple miles off the coast, Bobbi found a clearing large enough to land the Quinjet. Less than a minute after landing, a very tall man wearing a leather duster and carrying a staff walked into the clearing. He raised one hand in a clumsy attempt at the Vulcan salute.

"Ahoy the Warbird!" He called. "You can deactivate the cloaking device. I know you're there."

"That's the guy Coulson brought in to deliver that lecture on 084 handling." Mach said. "What's he doing here?"

"At a guess, I'd say he's the Warden." Bobbi replied. "I wonder how he knew we were coming?"

The man walked right up to where the Quinjet was landed and deliberately rapped his staff against the side.

"The two of you might as well come out and talk." He said.

"How does he know how many of us there are?" Bobbi wondered.

"This is getting freaky." Mack agreed.

They deactivated the apparently useless cloaking device and lowered the hatch.

"Welcome to Demonreach," Said the man cheerily, "I'm Harry Dresden, the Warden of this facility. What are you here for? In case you're planning to cause trouble, I suppose I should warn you that the island's feeling grouchy today."

The two agents exchanged a startled look. The _island_ was grouchy? Bobbi had the sinking feeling that she should have spent far more time reading the available files on PENTAGRAM than she'd been able to.

"I'm Agent Morse, and this is Agent Mackenzie." Bobbi said. "Agent Murphy challenged us to see if we could make infiltrate your facility without being detected."

"You just lost," Dresden pointed out. "So Murph sent you? Let's head over to my place so we can sit down and talk."

The Warden lead the two agents through the brush to a stone path forming a rough staircase. The staircase lead to the half-collapsed lighthouse and a stone cottage. Upon seeing them up-close, Bobbi realized that the odd glow was not from luminescent moss. No plant would ever grow in patterns that looked like words in some obscure alphabet she couldn't recognize, nor would anyone take the time to shape them like that artificially. She tried to snap a few pictures with her phone, only to find that it had suddenly gone dead.

During the walk, Bobbi and Mack tried to get Dresden to explain how he had detected the cloaked Quinjet, but were unable to get an explanation more detailed than "I know everything that happens on this island." After a number of failed attempts to figure out exactly what Dresden was guarding on the island and how it was secured, he had a question of his own.

"I don't suppose you brought any fresh food? I don't get the opportunity to leave the island to go grocery shopping all that often. Murph usually brings some whenever she visits."

Bobbi shook her head. "Sorry. We've had a hard enough time getting fresh food back at base. Everything keeps spoiling or freezing solid within a day."

"Really?" Dresden raised an eyebrow. "When did this start happening."

Bobbi and Mack started to describe the various strange events that had been happening at SHIELD ever since the incident in Chicago.

"Unnatural freezes, snowstorms out of nowhere, food spoilage… it sounds like you've attracted some unfriendly fae. What can you tell me about events before the incidents started?"

There was only one thing that Bobbi could think of that could have possibly caused fairies to be attacking SHIELD. Bobbi told the Warden about the incident with Calderon in the pub. Suddenly, she felt as if the air had spontaneously dropped to near freezing. It felt like something invisible was watching her – and was very, very angry.

" **YOU HURT GRASSHOPPER?** " A voice boomed from nowhere.

"What was that?" Mack asked.

"That was Demonreach," The Warden coldly stated, "I warned you the island was feeling grumpy, and he also likes Molly. So do I – she was once my apprentice. Her father named his youngest after me. And for what your people did to her, you're lucky that so far all she's done is make life difficult for you. She's fully capable and entitled to do far worse."

"What makes this girl so important, anyway?" Mack wondered.

"Molly Carpenter is Queen-To-Be of the Winter Fae," Dresden informed them, causing the two agents to pale. Of the all the people that Calderon had to injure in a stupid bar fight, it had to be a VIP. "On top of that, her father is a retired Knight of the Cross. Most people in the occult community give Michael the same kind of respect that you lot in SHIELD reserve for Captain America. If he decides to let the word out that SHIELD can't be trusted, it's unlikely that you'll be able to get anyone in the community to work with you any time in your lifetime."

"How are we supposed to fix of this mess?" Bobbi asked.

"I'd get in touch Murph and arrange for a meeting. At that meeting, apologize for your comrade's stupidity and offer to punish him however she sees fit, and offer wergild in compensation. And I'd hurry. The longer you delay, the more she's going to escalate, and sooner or later that wergild will have to be paid in blood. And as Knight of the Winter Court, I'm probably the person who'd be sent to collect it. Now I suggest you leave and convince your boss that it's time to start mending fences before someone sends a horde of trolls through the breach."

The apparently sentient island made its displeasure with the two agents quite clear on their way back to the Quinjet. The atmosphere reminded Bobbi of the first time she had ever been in a haunted house back when she was a kid – only far creepier, with a subtle undercurrent that unlike commercial haunted houses, the island was capable of harming them if it wanted to. By the time they made it back, she understood very clearly why virtually every who lived on the island ended up dead or insane.

One thing was for certain. They really needed to do something about the SHIELD/Fairy dispute before things started escalating further.

* * *

In an apartment in New York lived a woman known as Agatha Moore. It wasn't her real name, any more than Augusta King, Caroline Turing, or any of several dozen other names she had used over the years had been. In fact, in the past year it had been rare for her to keep the same identity going for more than a week. The name she thought of herself as was Root. At the moment, she appeared to be talking to nobody.

"I'm afraid I don't know how to do that, and can't pick it up in the amount of time you're talking about. Even if I start hitting the Whiskey I wouldn't be able to learn that skill that quickly.

There was a pause.

"You mean I don't be any good at it, I just have to be seen trying to do it at the right time? I can do that. I guess that means I'm going shopping, then."

A few moments later, she looked around, and spoke to herself instead of her unseen correspondent.

"So much for French Mary Poppins Barbie. Time for the next assignment."

* * *

A/N:

I'm sorry if the Scrabble message doesn't line up perfectly on anybody's screen. I tried, but some fonts don't give characters equal widths.

Yes, Dresden is a Star Wars fan and not a Star Trek fan. But Star Wars doesn't have a tradition of cloaking devices, and I figured that Harry would at least be familiar enough with the concept of cloaked Warbirds from Star Trek to make the reference.

I doubt Dresden himself knows everything that is locked up on the island, much less the mechanism behind the spells binding them there.

Root was revealed to have once been Whiskey from Dollhouse in the Recruitment Drive story Action Figures. So I decided to have her making references to Whiskey as a way of indirectly bringing up her Dollhouse-implanted skills. And asking for a shot of Whiskey while in the field is code for her requesting that her colleagues activate the 'three flowers in a vase' trigger to bring her Whiskey persona to the fore.


	6. Chapter 6

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

By bissek

Chapter 5

The Quinjet landed in the Playground. Agents Morse and Mackenzie staggered out of the plane, their faces pale and their bodies shaking. They were over a thousand miles from the seemingly sentient island known as Demonreach, and it still didn't feel like they were far enough away to be safe. They hadn't thought it was possible for geography to be capable of anger before that trip, and now that it was, they prayed to never experience anything like that again.

Commander Gonzalez was waiting for them. "Welcome back. How did the mission go?"

"We found it," Morse admitted.

"And we are **never** going back there again." Mackenzie added.

Gonzalez started to ask for more information but Bobbi just held her hand up.

"Please. Not now. After what happened on that island, I'm not up to a debriefing right now. Hopefully I'll feel more human after some sleep."

"Assuming we can sleep," Mack chimed in, "That island's going to give me nightmares."

* * *

Sleep was long in coming, and hardly restful. When morning came, a bleary-eyed Agent Morse forced herself out of bed to face the day. The room was freezing cold, and so was the shower; the furnace must have been filled with fairy ice again. An additional irritation revealed itself when she opened her sock drawer and found it full of coal.

"Trying to tell us that we've been naughty, Lady Winter?" She muttered to herself.

Making her way to the base cafeteria, Bobbi found that breakfast was late. Sitting down, she wondered if all the food had spoiled again. She didn't realize that she'd said that out loud until the Coulson loyalists on the next table answered her.

"No, we shouldn't be suffering spoilage problems for another," Simmons checked some calculations in front of her and her watch, "three hours and twenty-seven minutes."

Bobbi wasn't sure that she wanted to know how Simmons had calculated when the next mass spoilage would occur so precisely.

"What happened is that every single piece of electrical equipment in the kitchen disassembled itself in the middle of the night. Fitz was muttering something about gremlins when he went in there to try to help fix it." May joined in.

"With everything that's going on, I'm not surprised he decided that he was going to leave after breakfast, assuming we ever get breakfast." House said.

Gremlins. Somehow Bobbi had the feeling that they weren't figurative. Moments later, the lights all went out.

* * *

An hour later, the Playground was still having electrical difficulties. The conference room Bobbi and Mack met the rest of the Council in was dimly lit by emergency lighting only.

"So the Warden was able to detect your Quinjet despite it being cloaked?" Agent Weaver asked.

"That's right," Mack answered. "He even knew exactly how many people were on board before we turned the cloak off. I haven't the slightest idea how he did that."

"And what were you able to learn while on the island?" Gonzales inquired.

"About what PENTAGRAM is storing there and how, almost nothing. We did learn a great deal more about how badly Calderon messed up in Chicago, though. The girl he injured not only has the resources to cause all the problems we've been having on base – without our being able to catch whoever she's been sending to do it – she also has family connections that can kill SHIELD's reputation in the occult community. She's also the Warden's former protégé, so we can kiss any hope of cooperation from that direction goodbye."

"Again with the theory that we're under attack by fairies?" Agent Oliver scoffed, "Are we to expect Puck to show up soon?"

"You'd better hope not," Morse retorted. "PENTAGRAM has a file on Robin Goodfellow that was included in the data they cross-loaded to the database here, and apparently, he's a homicidal psychopath. We have enough problems as it is.

"The heating system keeps freezing over. Everything with an expiration date that comes into the base spoils rapidly. That includes all our medical supplies, which is why we've had to transfer Calderon to an outside hospital, where he is expected to lose an arm because of the infection that spread due to prematurely expired antibiotics. Now we're randomly losing power and important equipment keeps falling apart. And our people on the Iliad are suffering the same thing, along with the unnatural storm they're stuck in, which means that they're forced to live on raw fish that they have to catch themselves in the middle of a blizzard!"

"And before anyone asks, the coal that appeared everyone's sock drawers this morning can't be used to help with the heating issues," Mack reported. "I already tried, and the moment you ignite it, the stuff promptly turns into more of that funny gloop and evaporates."

"Frankly, I think we're lucky that Miss Carpenter has been willing to settle for making our lives increasingly more difficult without actually harming anyone so far. But there's only so far things can escalate before that's no longer an option."

"Regardless of whether or not fairies are somehow involved in our current difficulties, evidence does suggest that Miss Carpenter is somehow connected to them," Gonzales conceded. "We need to find a way to convince her to stop."

"She's already inscribed her demands on every window in the base." Morse pointed out.

"We are _not_ going to turn over a wounded agent," Gonzales insisted, then paused to think. "Coulson had his people in Chicago start looking for that old dagger shortly after you and Calderon passed through. Perhaps the promise of retrieving it is how he's convinced Carpenter's people to leave his loyalists alone.

"Increase our surveillance on PENTAGRAM. We need to secure that dagger for ourselves so we can use as leverage against Carpenter."

* * *

Murphy waited as Butters held Bob the Skull over the metal box that had been delivered to her that morning.

"It looks good," The talking skull reported. "This thing should be able to cork enough mordite to drop an elephant. Once we get the knife in here, Nemesis shouldn't be able to harm anyone holding the box."

"Which means we just need to make sure we can get the knife into the box without anyone getting infected," Murphy pointed out. "Thanks, Bob."

Daniel Carpenter came into the room, carrying a folder. "We just got a message from Doctor Petrikov. He just learned about a donation to a museum that might be our missing knife."

Murphy took the folder and looked through it. "This could be the athame, but if it's in a museum exhibit, we also have to worry about how it got from the Winter Court to the museum, and how many people were infected along the way. We can't explain to the museum staff that they've all been contaminated with by an extradimenional monster by handling an exhibit. Not without the world thinking we're insane, anyway."

"We may have lucked out there. The athame was personally donated by someone who matched the description of Maeve, and it was delivered inside a display case. Thanks to the museum's backlog of artifacts to examine and categorize, it's been sitting in that case untouched ever since. But Petrikov learned about it because the curators expect to be getting around to cracking the case and taking a look at it within the next week or two."

"At which point Nemesis comes back into play," Murphy concluded. "Alright, we need to pack up and get to this museum. If the knife in question really is Morgana's Athame, we're going to need to secure it quickly."

* * *

In a disused subway station in New York, the world's first and greatest hacker worked at a terminal while he conversed with his colleague in a side room.

"Mr Reese has managed to shut down the Brotherhood's money laundering scheme, but I'm afraid that's only going to slow them down, not neutralize them entirely," Finch stated.

"And even if it did, taking down Dominic wouldn't help us find Sameen or stop Samaritan," Root said from the other room, "Fortunately, our friends from the Playground recently did something that might have gained us a little breathing room."

"What would that be, Miss Groves?"

"Phil somehow managed to cut off half a dozen heads over the course of a week. While HYDRA still has more, it will take them a while to recover. Decima won't be able to call on any of the other cells until that's done. That limits Greer's resources in the short term."

"That's a relief. Still, I wish we could risk contacting Mr Coulson directly. His resources could be useful in helping us figure out what happened to Miss Shaw."

"He's had to go dark himself. My next assignment is doing something to help him out so his people can start working openly again." The woman stepped out of the side room, wearing a formal blouse and skirt combination and carrying a large instrument case.

"How are you going to help bring SHIELD back with a cello?" Finch wondered.

"To be honest, Harry, I'm not sure myself. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to be seen busking in Central Park in twenty-three minutes."

"I didn't even know you could play the cello, Miss Groves."

Root turned back briefly on her way out of the station. "I can't."

* * *

A/N: It's been a while since I updated this. I've been distracted by other things. Fortunately, I think there are only going to be 2-3 more chapters after this before it wraps up.

Puck appears in the Dresden Files graphic novel Wild Card, where he is depicted as being a mischievous trickster in the same way that The Joker is. He kills a dozen people and nearly starts a three-way war in the streets of Chicago. In the end, he was never defeated, merely convinced to leave.

This should be the last time Person of Interest shows up in this particular story. I just needed Root to provide better justification for why Gonzales moved when he did, and for something that will happen a couple chapters down the line.

For anyone wondering about extending this to season 4 and/or Doctor Strange (especially since Afalstein implied a connection between Strange and the Gatekeeper back in Brighter Futures, which fits quite well with the overall mission of the Kamar-Taj sorcerers in the MCU), I'm not sure I'll be up to writing another Recruitment Drive story after this. I have an older story that's been in limbo while I've worked on other projects for too long. Ghost Rider, the Darkhold and Kaecilius do sound like things that the Agents of PENTAGRAM should be dealing with, if you can get around the fact that when you cross Dresden Files with Doctor Strange, the likely result is Strange getting executed by a Warden for breaking at least two (and possibly as many as four) of the Laws.


	7. Chapter 7

Recruitment Drive: Reaching an Accord

By bissek

Chapter 6

The base was cold, haphazardly lit, and its personnel were underfed. This was unfortunately the typical state of affairs in the Playground. Commander Gonzales was hearing a lot of complaints about the conditions ever since they had taken the place. As he opened the door to leave his quarters, he quickly found that things had just gotten worse… again.

The hallways were clouded with blankets of fog. The only reason he could see ten feet was because some of the lights in the hall were still working. He didn't want to think of what it was like if the fog continued into areas where the power was out. As he started slowly walking, a noise like a whisper called out to him in a nonexistent wind.

 _Gonzales…._

The commander paused and looked around. Nobody else was there. He continued on his way.

 _Give me Calderon, Gonzales._

The unfamiliar woman's voice called out to him again. Shaking his head, Gonzales picked up the pace. Odd, he could have sworn that the turn in the hallway was sooner than it was…

Moments later, he walked into a wall that looked for all the world like an empty hallway.

* * *

"This has got to stop!" Gonzales slapped his hand on the table. "Every day we have to expend more and more resources just to remain operational. If we don't deal with this soon, we won't be able to function at all!"

"The disturbing thing is that I think that Miss Carpenter is still holding back." Agent Weaver commented.

" _Holding back?!_ Our agents now need to use canes to tell when they're about to walk into things!"

"And however she's doing it, can anyone think of a reason why she wouldn't be able to do it in a busy intersection?"

There was a pause as everyone considered the potential carnage that would have brought about. So far, the only person who had ended up in serious danger because of all the incidents was Calderon, who was both the person who their attacker had a direct grudge against, and someone who had been seriously injured for totally unrelated reasons shortly before the attacks began.

The entire affair had started because one of their agents wasn't willing to accept that Carpenter's people didn't recognize SHIELD's authority. Now it seemed that they also didn't take SHIELD seriously enough to actually attack them even though they clearly had the means. For an agency that was once one of the most powerful in the world, it was an infuriating thought.

"Is there any news on PENTAGRAM?" Gonzales demanded.

"Commander Murphy and several of her people appear to have dropped off the map in the past few hours," Agent Oliver reported. "It's possible she used some of those Way-Walkers to head out on a mission."

"Make sure one of the Quinjets stays in working condition," the Commander ordered. "Once we know where they're going, I want you to take a team and go after them."

* * *

The day after Commander Gonzales learned exactly how difficult an illusionist can make one's life if she puts her mind to it, Commander Murphy stood in front of a table addressing her people.

"Alright, we've confirmed that the dagger at the museum is the Athame. Now we need to secure it before anyone touches the thing and we end up with another Outsider infiltrating the planet.

"Doctor Petrikov has already visibly taken a flight out of town. Everyone who was part of the recon phase of the operation will also be heading out shortly. That should give them cover if the Athame's removal is discovered too quickly. The rest of us, should we not get caught during the mission proper, should be covered by the Ways. Nobody will believe we could get here and back home in the time frame in question without using some easily traceable form of transportation. In any case, if this works as planned, it should take some time before they even realize that it's missing.

"The museum closes at eight. We move in at ten. Everyone check their gear. If we don't get this right the first time, things could get very ugly for everyone."

* * *

All of the museum staff except for the security guards had left for the night, and they had settled in for the usual routine of pacing around the corridors and staring at video screens. None of them expected anything more than another dull evening of work, which was just how PENTAGRAM liked it.

"The security on this part of the building seems light." Will said as the breaking and entering specialist they'd borrowed from Westen's people in Europe worked on cracking the door.

"They probably assumed that anyone trying to rob a museum would be after the exhibits. They don't advertise what kind of things they have in the back rooms that haven't been put on display yet, so most thieves wouldn't know what's there to be stolen." Daniel pointed out.

"Their mistake," the third man concurred.

The door unlocked, and the three made their way inside, carefully avoiding the security cameras as they made their way to the storage area.

"Let's find that knife." Will said.

A few minutes later they found the case containing the Athame among all the other boxes holding various artifacts waiting to be appraised and studied. Will opened the metal box they had commissioned to contain the artifact, while Daniel got a pair of tongs out of his coat and proceeded to lift the Athame, case and all, into the box. After sealing the box, they set it aside and turned to their colleague.

"Track down the hard copy of their inventory and lift the records on the Athame. While you're doing that, we'll rearrange all the crates so that it'll take longer for anyone to realize that something's missing."

Two hours later, the store room had been sufficiently reorganized that it would take a full inventory of its contents before anyone could reliably find anything in there again. During that time, the file folder on the athame had also been located and removed from the file cabinet. With that done, they powered up the records computer.

"We don't have the access codes needed to log in." Daniel mentioned.

"We don't need them," the third man stated, holding up a small object. "Set this off and the EMP will fry the hard drive and everything on it. They're not going to have backup digital records of this stuff – that's what the hard copies are for, and we already took those. But we'll need to be ready to run the moment it goes off – the pulse will knock out power in a good part of the building, so security will know that something's up when that happens."

Daniel paused to think. "Okay, here's how we'll do this. You give me the EMP device and standby near the door. Will, you take the Athame to the car and start it up right now. I'll set off the EMP and follow. The moment I clear the door, you lock it behind us and make for the exit. The only doors we should need to lock behind us are this one and the exterior door we came in through. Once we've locked both doors, we drive back to the safehouse."

Will headed out the door. Daniel took the EMP device and stood next to the computer. When the third agent nodded that he was ready, Daniel pushed the button. There was a sharp whine as the device activated. The moment the noise stopped, he bolted for the door. The other agent was no more than thirty seconds behind him. Less than five minutes after Daniel had triggered the EMP, the three of them were in the car on their way out of the parking lot. Twenty minutes after that, they had made it back to where Murphy was waiting.

"You get the Athame?" Murphy asked.

Daniel held up the box. "Right here. All we have to do is take the Way back to Chicago and we'll be able to pay off my sister the fairy princess."

Will chuckled. "You know, when most people call a relative something like that, it brings up the image of a five-year-old girl in a pink dress with wings, not a twenty-something goth who could cause a global calamity if she put her mind to it." They all laughed at that.

Moments later, everything went wrong.

* * *

Agent Oliver and his strike team had been tailing PENTAGRAM the entire day. For much of it, all that the surveillance had achieved was to confirm the existence of the Way-walkers. They had tailed one man into a dead-end alley, only for the man to disappear without a trace. Three hours later, the man had reappeared from the same alley, accompanied by a man who according to SHIELD's records should have been in Europe. Given that it was impossible to even make a one-way trip to Europe in that time frame, Oliver had been forced to concede that Agent May's claims about PENTAGRAM's ability to rapidly travel anywhere in the world were true.

Reasoning that if Commander Murphy was bringing in outside agents, she must have an op in the works, Oliver had his team redouble their efforts to keep her people under surveillance. Using a sophisticated listening device to spy on the briefing Murphy gave her agents, he learned that they were going to make a grab for the knife that they were searching for for some reason. After sending word back to Commander Gonzales at headquarters, he received updated orders. He was to try to find out what they wanted the knife for, and if practicable, secure the knife for the Council.

Tailing people at an hour when virtually nobody is on the road is a very difficult task. If Oliver hadn't already known where they were going, which allowed him to just plant a team at their destination in advance, he might not have been able to avoid being spotted.

Then came the hard part – waiting.

"Bravo Team, what's your status?" Oliver asked on his radio.

"No change," came the reply. "They appear to be taking their time to make sure that nobody can figure out what's missing any time soon. Wait a minute – all the lights in the building just went out. I think someone just triggered a SHIELD pocket EMP."

"They're making their move. Get ready."

Five minutes later, Bravo Team reported in again. "They just pulled out. Probably heading back to your location. If they took anything out, it's in a metal box that they brought in with them."

Less than half an hour later, Oliver was listening in as the PENTAGRAM agents reported back to their superior. Listening in on a pair of headphones, he overheard something very interesting.

"All we have to do is take the Way back to Chicago and we'll be able to pay off my sister the fairy princess."

That knife was something the girl who was somehow sabotaging everything in the base wanted? Then the Council needed to get it. They could use it as leverage to lift the siege they were under.

"Team," he ordered. "Move in and secure that knife. ICERs only."

The team moved to the entrance of the safehouse. A small charge was placed on the door. The moment the lock blew, Oliver kicked open the door and tossed in a flash-bang. His people were through the door and firing the moment it went off. All the PENTAGRAM agents were down before the noise faded. Less than a minute after the door was first breached, they had secured the metal case holding the knife and were gone.

Later that night, all of Oliver's people regrouped at their Quinjet and it took off to return to the Playground. As they flew back, Oliver reported in.

"So the knife PENTAGRAM was after is something that Carpenter wants?" Commander Gonzales asked.

"Correct, sir," Oliver affirmed. "With it in our possession we should have some leverage against her." Popping the seal on the box, he removed the knife from the display case inside it and held it up to the viewscreen. "I'm not sure what the big fuss is over the knife, though," he commented as he drew the blade. "It's just an old dagger."

* * *

A/N: Molly once killed a dirty cop by using an illusion to create a "Shoot Him, He Has A Wallet!" situation. If she really wanted Gonzales and his people dead, there would be casualties by now.

The unnamed lock specialist I brought in was just somebody I created because none of the PENTAGRAM people are breaking and entering specialists – but Westen probably knows some people who are and could loan them one. He won't be appearing again.

The Council still doesn't really accept PENTAGRAM's mission brief, and thus has failed to respect a warning about how dangerous magical artifacts can be. Oliver really shouldn't have handled that knife.


End file.
